


nine types

by honeyvoiced



Category: Dynasty (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Childhood Memories, Cult Weirdness, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Unresolved Feelings, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22424881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyvoiced/pseuds/honeyvoiced
Summary: There were nine types of personality that cult recruiters sought out when it came time to broaden their circle.
Relationships: Kirby Anders/Fallon Carrington
Comments: 14
Kudos: 36





	nine types

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you [Amanda](http://twitter.com/eastsidewidow) for beta-reading!

Fallon listened to the voicemail message a second time, exhaling shakily and gripping the coffee mug in her hands a little tighter to still the tremors in her fingers. She knew it wasn’t her fault - in fact, for once her hands were completely clean - but it was the second time that Kirby had been sent away from her when they hadn’t had a chance to make up. Holding grudges always seemed so powerful until she was faced with the reality of actually being forced to keep them. 

_“Do we even know if Kirby wants to be saved?”_

_“Again: not helpful.”_

If she wasn’t so exhausted, Fallon would have slapped the disinterested looks off of both Sam and Michael’s faces in front of Anders and God himself. There was a time when Michael had been willing to put himself between her and Kirby - and while Fallon had always known somewhere in the back of her mind that it had to have been at least partially out of spite, it still felt like a slap in the face, now. How was it even possible for him to care so little? Like to him, being with Kirby had just been for Fallon’s benefit? A strong, clear message: _You don’t own me, and you don’t own her. Everyone you care about exists when you aren’t around._

And all of Sam’s history with Kirby aside - the two of them running around the manor like children, fast friends from hell, in Fallon’s personal opinion - the question was a stupid one, anyway.

Of _course_ Kirby didn’t want to be saved. That was sort of the whole reason why cults were so insidious. It wasn’t something that anyone else in the room could relate to - even though they all came close. Anders had military experience, Sam had a deep obsession with Instagram-version-wellness, and Michael had literally endangered their family just to feel a little more important for a while. Fallon could be honest when she was alone with her thoughts, too. She had that longing for a place, whether it was in the world, or her family. Her own cult was the house of Carrington. It was a realization that was owed some serious unpacking, but it would have to wait until they’d brought Kirby home. 

That in itself seemed a little cruel. A push-and-pull game of ‘we love you, we love you not’ - Fallon knew she was guilty of it, too. Pulling the other woman in. Apologies. Job offers. Blessings to date her ex and promises to be a good friend. Shoving her back out to sea. I’m busy, don’t bother me. Punishing her for being right. Tearing her reputation apart. Ruining her relationship.

There were nine types of personality that cult recruiters sought out when it came time to broaden their circle. 

An example: **Those seeking validation.**

Lifting the china mug to her lips and wincing at the unpleasant taste of the now cold coffee, Fallon played the voicemail one more time. She didn’t know what she was listening for - maybe a sign that she actually was fine, after all, or the entire thing was a prank; some weird act for attention and she wasn’t even with Joel, she was sitting in some hotel room somewhere enjoying a cocktail and room service. 

Fallon didn’t hear any of that, though. Instead she heard tired bitterness. _This is goodbye, your last warning has passed. No one listened, and now I’m gone._

There was no plea for rescue; no hidden cry for help, no desire to hear an apology. No sharing clothing or offering career promotions would reverse the exhausted _hurt_ in Kirby’s tone. It was, in true Kirby fashion, her last kind act - making sure that no one sat up in bed two years down the line and finally realized that she was gone. It just sounded like giving up; like she had finally walked away from the fight and was ready to go home and curl up and sleep - once she figured out where _home_ was supposed to be. 

Sam had been such a quick fix for Kirby. Snapping him out of his loneliness from Steven by jetting off to god knows where had been that simple. He’d needed a reminder that he was loved - and that was easy to do, with everyone around him making sure that he was reminded. 

Fallon knew this rescue mission, as it were, needed to be rooted in love. And it would be, if she could get past the overwhelming nausea that bloomed up inside of her every time she pictured never seeing the other woman again. It was selfish, to want to apologize, and she knew that it was for her own sake more than Kirby’s, but that goal was also much easier to focus on for the time being. 

She knew better than to get her hopes up, but it was hard not to play the movie out in her mind. Find Kirby, apologize, bring her home.

* * *

“This friendship means a lot to me.”

“Really?”

“Yes!” Kirby was practically breathless. Her eyes were wide and her lips had morphed into a genuine pout. Her face was so expressive - it had been helpful, at least for Fallon, to be able to gauge all of her reactions before Fallon even fully finished a sentence, most of the time. Now, though, it tugged at her chest. She wanted to be mad, truly, but she could feel the dust being flung off as each individual heartstring was plucked and found herself fighting off a look of pride as Kirby switched gears, suddenly standing up for herself.

And when she was gone, Fallon was left alone with only herself. That, her thoughts, and the uncomfortable, ticklish feeling of sweet affection overcoming her senses, making her squirm in her seat and try to push the smile off of her face.

Maybe it was just personal growth - wanting to see Kirby succeed; enjoying watching her light up at each opportunity. It was nice to see her passionate about something again. She hadn’t seen her so excited about a project since they were little kids, when Kirby had been recruited to help her paint the styrofoam balls into planets on Fallon’s homework assignment about the solar system. 

_“What color is Venus?”_

_“Orange.”_

_“How do you know?”_

Kirby’s question had both caught her off guard _and_ successfully pissed her off, even just at age eight. In fact, she’d been so stunned by it that it had taken her a full thirty seconds of mental recovery before she shoved her worksheet at the other girl and pointed at the planet next to Earth.

_“See?”_

Kirby had taken the sheet out of her hands - Fallon distinctly remembered the moment because Kirby’s hands were _always_ dirty from playing in the garden, or sticky from touching something she wasn’t supposed to - most often picking up pieces of the potpourri in the sitting room and playing with them despite constantly being told that it was for decoration, not entertainment. 

But she’d stopped what she was doing to watch her pore over the work sheet as if it were the most exciting thing she’d ever seen. She was a couple of grades below Fallon, so she hadn’t moved into the ‘space’ themed lessons at school, yet. 

_“This is us.”_

It had been less out of the goodness of her heart or desire to educate someone younger that Fallon had reached over and pointed to Earth on the diagram - it simply made her feel smarter.

_“I_ know _that!”_ Kirby had insisted, but she punctuated it with a snickering laugh, clutching the sheet a little closer. She wasn’t smug about knowing anything - not like Fallon. Her voice was bright and the smile on her face came to her easily. Everything through her eyes - at least back then - had been so unthreatening. _“I want to go here.”_

She’d pointed at Mercury.

At the time, Fallon had rolled her eyes and taken the sheet back from her. She didn’t know what possessed her to.

_“You’d die. It’s hot.”_

Kirby had gone back to quietly painting after that - even then, it made Fallon feel bad. That was a lot of her friendship with Kirby. She’d push and push, just to see how far she could take it, and then the immediate guilt would set in when she managed to hurt her feelings, as if that hadn’t been her intention in the first place. 

Years down the line, a therapist would tell her that she just needed to know what lines she could toe and cross before the people who loved her gave up. A therapist whose calls she didn’t return.

* * *

Fallon had phoned Kirby approximately thirty-eight times in the span of an hour, flipping through paperwork, scrolling legal advice forums, and simultaneously filling the other woman’s voicemail inbox with threats of litigation and personal revenge so severe that she was giving herself adrenaline shakes just by vocalizing them. 

_Femperial_ had been born out of self-empowerment. It was _her_ baby, something she had started from the ground up - or rather, almost from the ground up - and for Kirby to go back on their plan made her feel like she was pleading with the kidnapper of her firstborn. 

Everything was airtight, though. Kirby wasn’t an idiot, despite what Fallon liked to tell her. Femperial was hers. She’d been so fucking _pushy_ about it, anyway, and if Fallon’s pride wasn’t telling her to find Kirby and strangle her with her bare hands, maybe she’d have let it go. The last thing that Kirby wanted was to be a charity case, she’d made that clear, so letting her win under the guise of throwing their ‘game’ in her favour seemed like fairly good revenge.

  
The issue was that without Liam, she needed something. Anything. And business had been her strong suit, alway. And _god damnit, Femperial was hers._

* * *

It had been a dangerous game to get her so drunk. She was toeing the line of poisoning her, but Kirby had always been a better drinker than Fallon had - not necessarily in ability to hold it, but she could certainly throw at least half a dozen more back when Fallon had already called it quits. It was probably her Australian background. Fallon had once called them the drunk version of Canada, and she’d never found out if it was accurate or not, because by the time she’d said it, Kirby was already drunk and she’d laughed so hard she made herself sick and left.

This had been different, though, and as Kirby had approached incoherent levels of blackout, she’d made it clear that if Fallon wasn’t holding her hair back while she puked and helping her into a cab to get home, they’d be over, forever.

At the time, that seemed like a fair trade. Leave Kirby to die, basically, ruin her career, and then never speak to her again. 

It hadn’t gone that way, though. Kirby, same as always, seemed to see right through her. She always could tell when Fallon was lying - it was something that would have been admirable in someone that Fallon considered a friend, but in Kirby it was proving to be an obstacle, instead. 

Fallon had been ready to lose her back then. Enthusiastically so, in fact.

Memories of that night - the way that Kirby was only surface-level smug about being right and the hurt look when she realized that her own desire to jump right back into Fallon’s arms at the first sign of a truce had once again been her downfall - burned in the back of Fallon’s mind as she stared out the car window at the scenery along the sides of the road. 

The area surrounding the compound was beautiful, but she wasn’t romanced by it - not the way that she knew Kirby must have been when she first saw it. **Those seeking an identity**. It was another one of the personality types that cults looked for. Kirby had been seeking it since they were little, even through a fog of childlike enthusiasm that had never faded. 

Fallon couldn’t help but wonder how Kirby had felt when she’d first pulled up to the compound that was now drawing closer. The massive walls made it look like some kind of futuristic dystopian war camp. Kirby had always liked those stories - the ones about the world crumbling and society going back to its roots. The way that the hero always did what was right - not just right for themselves, or what was legal. 

  
There was no way that Kirby had walked into this… _place_ and not felt at least a little freaked out - or maybe she was just so far gone by that point that the need to lay her head down and feel welcome outweighed the creepy-factor of the plot of land before her. She hadn’t ever asked why, when Kirby read those books or watched those movies. Maybe the reason Kirby liked them wasn’t because she could see herself in the heroes, but because she hoped, that when the time came that she was too tired to help herself, one of those heroes would come for her.

* * *

Kirby had made herself comfortable back in the manor almost immediately after her arrival, and while Fallon had done her best to avoid her after their fight at Club Colby, she seemed to be impossible to shake. She wasn’t even staying in the manor, and yet she managed to appear around every corner and show up at the worst possible opportunity every time. 

It didn’t help that she’d latched so quickly onto Sam, and Monica, and even Jeff. Like a waking nightmare she was at every event, every dinner, dragging _Fallon’s_ friends away from her. By the time she’d forcibly invited herself on the ski trip to Idaho, Fallon had all but given up on pushing her away.

She needed friends. _Fine_ . She could have _one_ chance. 

It wasn’t just Fallon that she was getting closer to, either. Kirby and Sam had been attached at the hip since the wedding, it seemed, always coming up with crazy schemes - matching tattoos, nannying a missing baby together, _having_ a child using her as a surrogate, jumpstarting a social media career - it all added up too quickly. 

But Fallon could see through the veil of fun and excitement whenever she managed to catch Kirby unawares. At the end of the day, it wasn’t her that the spotlight was ever focused on. At first, Fallon had been wary. A person who never asked for anything in return was usually trying to trick her into _something_ \- but Kirby was kind with no audience. When they’d arrived home from Idaho, and she’d come to find Fallon crying alone in her room, she hadn’t asked for respect, or friendliness, or insisted that Fallon pretend she was okay so that Kirby could leave her to her thoughts guilt-free. It was raw, and quiet, and a moment just for the two of them. A promise that she was absolutely there if she needed her, no matter what it was that she eventually wanted. 

It wasn’t an isolated incident, either. In the height of her memoir-writing madness, Kirby was there. Never asking for credit, never expecting anything other than the reassurance that Fallon wasn’t going to spiral out of control again. 

**Those who are followers, not leaders** were susceptible to cults and family-systems of the like just because it was nice to be _needed_ , sometimes. It was nice to have someone giving you a path to follow - Fallon understood that. She’d lived that way for most of her life before making the conscious decision to truly make her own mark in the world. That shift in her own way of living was probably what had drawn Kirby to her like a moth to a flame in the first place. Sam had been doing his own thing for a while, and didn’t need her to prop him up any longer, so having Fallon to boss her around was well-timed.

It wasn’t that Kirby had _zero_ ambition - Fallon could see it in all of her day-to-day actions at work. She took the initiative and went the extra mile on every project, paying attention to each detail, including a few that even Fallon had overlooked. She’d walked in to the office five minutes before a meeting with a newly signed author, once, clutching armloads of hibiscus flowers and claiming that their nine o’ clock had just returned from Bora Bora and kept her Instagram neatly themed - the flowers in the office would help blend her feed from island life back to city life if she chose to photograph them. She had, and her geotagging the Femperial office had increased her book’s presales. 

After that, she’d just wanted to get lunch together to celebrate. A little praise, some recognition that she’d done the right thing - that was all she asked for, most days. 

That had probably been why it had been such a fight when she’d fired her that first time. It had been a rough day for Fallon, too. Not only had Adam already ruined everything at the _Atlantix_ office and made her late for her pitch meeting, but once Kirby was gone, the office had fallen almost immediately into chaos. It was Kirby’s best defence - insinuate herself so deeply into a space that it couldn’t run without her presence. Fallon hadn’t actually realized how much Kirby did until she wasn’t there to do it. She’d assumed the interns were responsible for things like reminding Fallon to eat by leaving fresh pastries on her desk or bringing her her jacket so that she didn’t get _all the way down to the lobby before realizing she had to go back up to the office and get it, god damn it._ Truthfully, it probably _was_ some intern’s job, but Kirby had been so happy to pick up the slack on just about everything that everyone, not just Fallon, had grown used to the comfort of having her there.

Plus, she’d admit that she missed her. No one else around the office was as impressed with her day-to-day operations, and Kirby’s overall enthusiasm for just being at work outshone all of the interns’ combined passion. 

She’d had a lot more on her plate that week, though. She remembered thinking she would get Kirby back when she had a spare minute - Kirby was _always_ there, and always ready to come running back when Fallon invited her back in again. She’d had no reason to prioritize it.

* * *

Adam’s usual excitement and enthusiasm for doing just about anything Fallon asked was admittedly creepy, and any other day she would have spent a little more time feeling sorry for herself for being in any position wherein they needed to be working together, but Kirby was the focus of the day. No amount of playing house with the most terrifying walking-Folgers-Coffee-ad of a brother was going to dissuade her from marching into the compound, finding Kirby, and telling her to come home.

That first glimpse of her had been a breath of fresh air. She didn’t look outwardly hurt - and she wasn’t the pregnant-and-barefoot weirdo that Fallon assumed Joel had already turned her into, but she was visibly changed. No longer wearing one of her brightly colored, occasionally questionable getups, she seemed softer around the edges, like something out of a more modernized version of a Bible story. Fallon had mentally practiced what she would say, just in case she didn’t have much time to plead her case and needed to make each word count.

We need you to come back. This isn’t you. We love you.

“Wow, woodwork. They really must brainwash you, here.” Smooth.

“I’m doing what’s best for me.” A burst of cool disappointment shot through Fallon the moment the other woman spoke. She’d been caught up, unfortunately, in her fantasy of all of this being an easy task, as if getting Kirby to come home was as simple as ordering her an Uber back to the manor. Kirby may have been a wet dream for a cult recruiter, personality-wise, but it was still a two-headed monster, itself. Taking her by the hand and loosening her grip on the cult was one problem, but pulling its claws out of Kirby, too, was its own terrifying ordeal. 

The way she’d turned Fallon’s own words around on her again and backed her into a corner was so typically _Kirby_ that it made Fallon comfortable, if only for a moment. She was still _her_ in there. She’d just gotten a little lost; a little turned around. If they could just buy a little more time, it would be fine.

The threat of mutually assured destruction helped. She hadn’t been picturing this rescue mission going this way - insulting her and then blackmailing her into letting her stay at the compound - but it would work for the time being. The look on Kirby’s face at the threat that Fallon would go and find Joel and tell him all about Kirby’s outbound phone calls back home was reminiscent of their younger years. When they were sick of living on top of one another - close enough in age to spend every waking moment together, but just far enough apart that Kirby was easily frustrated by things that came easily to Fallon - and she was an easy target.

**Those who are seeking meaning** were an easy target, too, at least where people like Joel were involved. It wasn’t enough to just take Kirby’s cash, the liquidation of her company and whatever else she’d squirrelled away over the last few months, but the threat of Kirby being hauled off to another continent was panic-inducing. Not only was it a familiar feeling, but knowing that the time she and Adam had managed to buy was worth nothing sent her into a mental overdrive that had her ready to get down on her knees and literally beg for her to come home. 

Seated in the back of the ‘promotional ceremony’, Fallon felt like she was watching a gruesome murder in slow motion. They needed a plan B, and C, and D, but her brain was throbbing inside her skull, causing a headache worse than anything she’d ever dealt with before. She wanted to scream, or cry, or _something_ , _anything_ , but she kept it together, folding her shaking hands on her lap and trying to keep herself from blacking out.

_“A woman who has made unprecedented progress, despite the shackles of her toxic past.”_

_“I think he’s talking about you.”_

Fallon dug her fingernails into her palms, fists clenched, and then smoothed them back out against her dress. 

They just needed to get her alone again. At this rate, Fallon was willing to physically carry the other woman out. There had to be zip ties lying around somewhere. Adam probably kept chloroform on his person at all times.

Joel had all of the right words. Using phrases like ‘the garden of your soul’ and ‘thriving’ and other things inspired by growth and freshness, while Fallon couldn’t come up with anything other than ‘please’ and threats of ‘I won’t forgive you’. 

The only way to stall was to steal the spotlight. She’d been doing it for her entire life, and the look of annoyed disappointment on Kirby’s face was the same as it always had been. Those moments were grounding. They were familiar; they were the signs that it was still Kirby.

  
If they made it out of this alive, she was going to hide food in Blake’s office and leave it there to rot. She’d tear up every single piece of clothing in his wardrobe and light his desk on fire with everything in it. It should have been him there arguing with Kirby and apologizing for his behaviour and then taking her home in a limo with champagne and caviar. Of course Kirby wasn’t in a rush to come home. She had no idea how many people had banded together to rescue her - she didn’t know about Jeff, or Culhane, or Sam, or even Anders. It was just Fallon - and Adam, though she wasn’t counting him - and that was nothing new. It was _always_ Fallon, and Kirby had clearly had enough of it.

* * *

“Y’know,” Adam had apparently decided that being stuck in a car with him in an itchy wig and uncomfortably hot layers of clothing wasn’t bad enough, and thusly decided to try to strike up a conversation with Fallon. They’d only been in the car for about an hour so far but it felt like days. “This metaphysical stuff is powerful. There are so many sure cases of positive impact and healing that it’s almost surprising that more people don’t join cults. You know, **those with schizotypal thought patterns** are one of the personality traits susceptible to cult recruitment?”

“Yes,” Fallon hissed. “I watched that _Netflix_ documentary, too. And what are you even talking about? I thought you were a real doctor, not some essential-oils-pedalling stay at home mom. Actually, you know what? We don’t have to talk. At all.”

“Radio it is, then!” Adam replied cheerfully, taking one hand off of the wheel and fiddling with the knob of the stereo instead.

_“ - think about you day and night, it’s only right, to think about the girl you love and hold her tight -”_

“I love this song.”

Fallon resisted the urge to look over at him. She _also_ loved it, but she wasn’t about to give her brother the satisfaction. He had no right to be so upbeat, not when they had such an important task ahead of them. 

“This is going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day,” Fallon complained under her breath.

“There’s a simple remedy for that,” Adam chirped, before, much to her horror, he jumped in on the next line, singing along. _“So happy togetherrrrrr!”_

“Please don’t,” Fallon pleaded.

_“I can’t see me loving nobody but you!”_

Squeezing her eyes shut as if it would help her block out the sound, Fallon sunk further into the passenger seat and pressed her fingertips to her temples to try to preemptively massage away her oncoming migraine. Only a few miles to go.

* * *

_“Do you want me to read you your horoscope?”_

Fallon had no interest in hearing her horoscope. It was always so insulting, and inaccurate, and listening to Kirby mispronounce the names of constellations made her feel like she was being tortured in some deep circle of hell. She had no chance to be mean, though, because Anders had walked in to refill her orange juice - in a champagne flute, of course. A virgin mimosa. She was twelve, now, it was time she started to act like the adult that she practically was.

“Sure.”

Anders smiled, mostly to himself, as he left them. The pair of them hadn’t had a fight in days - it was a new record. Fallon wasn’t going to be the one to screw it up. That could be Kirby’s job.

“Problems with money and joint resources can arise. You may feel like somebody else is clamping down on or draining your finances in some way. This can take the form of alimony, property division, taxes, and debts.”

Fallon remembered thinking about the shares that her dad had bought for her for her birthday. There was a race track that he used to take her and Steven to as kids that she’d always liked, and he’d made sure that she had a piece of it. Then he had explained the way her dividends were taxed and she’d been annoyed for the rest of the week.

“What’s… alim-any mean?”

_“Alimony.”_ Fallon had corrected. “It’s when you pay someone for their time that they wasted being married to you after you get a divorce.”

“Oh.” Kirby had gone back to reading the horoscopes again, but Fallon, feeling much more awake with a stomach full of bacon and fresh orange juice, wasn’t quite done prodding at her.

“You know all of that stuff is fake, right?”

Kirby shrugged.

“You don’t know that.”

It was memorably tense, after that. That had been how Fallon knew that she’d managed to get under her skin.

“Yeah, I do. Do you really think that the ocean and stars or whatever are going to tell you the future?”

“Not the future,” Kirby corrected, not looking up from the paper. “The present. Plus, our bodies are mostly water. You think that the tides don’t affect us, too? We’re made up of a lot more than just a brain piloting a meat sack.”

“That’s stupid.”

“You’re not smarter than me, Fallon.”

Something about that comeback had cut deeply. It wasn’t an insult - not unless it was paired with an insult right back at the other girl - nor was it particularly mean-spirited. It was simple. A soft-voiced request for Fallon to _please_ just _once_ shut the fuck up and let someone enjoy something harmlessly. 

But she wouldn’t let someone else have the last word, not in her own house.

“Yeah, I am. Why do you think we aren’t at the same school?”

“Because we can’t afford it,” Kirby had replied. She hadn’t missed a beat, either, like she was just waiting for the opportunity to strike. But then, as soon as she’d dropped the bomb, she planted flowers. “Does this mean you don’t want me to read your daily affirmation?”

“Sure.”

* * *

“Wear this.”

Kirby glanced up from the cell phone in her hands - a hand-me-down from Steven with no attached phone number - and squinted at the skirt in Fallon’s hands.

“I don’t think that’s going to fit.”

At age eleven, she’d already managed to not only catch up to Fallon in height, but surpass her by an inch and a half. She was getting close to being able to physically overpower Fallon on size alone, despite the older girl’s much more athletic background.

“Put it on.”

Rolling her eyes - but still getting up to do as she was asked - Kirby took the skirt and pulled it on over her leggings, hiking it up to her waist before plopping back down into her spot on the edge of Fallon’s bed to get rid of the leggings.

Glancing at herself in the mirror, noticeably uncomfortable, Kirby stood back up and scrutinized her reflection critically. She claimed that she was going through an awkward phase. Gangly and uncoordinated - all skin and bones with elbows sticking out awkwardly and an ass bony enough to cut a leather armchair - but Fallon was secretly envious of her. Her hair was growing out in natural waves, and everywhere they went people were always so in awe of its shade. The adults that usually fawned over Fallon ( _She’s so pretty! Like a little Alexis!)_ were now enraptured by _Kirby_ , with her model-like waif thinness and legs that stretched into the next week, long red shiny hair and skin so clear it was like she sold her soul to the devil to surpass the acne unit of puberty. 

She would have never let her know any of that, of course. Whenever Kirby asked, she wasn’t tall, or statuesque. To Fallon, at least out loud, she was _huge_ . Like a giraffe. She’d point at the overtly lesbian, masculine, professional volleyball players on television and nudge Kirby right in her bony ribs. _“You kind of look like her.”_

For as long as her insecurity held her down, Fallon was still in control. Of their friendship, their wellness both individually and as a unit, and how long she could keep Kirby to herself before she found greener pastures.

Everyone else, however, was not as easy to control. She couldn’t stop other people from complimenting Kirby, or loving her as soon as they met her. All she could do was quietly and calculatively teach Kirby that everyone could love her, but it only mattered if Fallon did.

“Sort of short, don’t you think?” Kirby turned around to see how high up in the back the skirt rode.

“It’s pretty,” Fallon replied, even a little bit honestly. 

All of the unsureness washed away from her expression at Fallon’s approval. 

“Okay, I’ll wear it.”

Fallon watched as Kirby looked at her reflection again, but with new eyes - like she was trying to see herself how Fallon did. It made her wonder how often Kirby did that when she wasn’t there to notice it.

Monica said that Kirby had a crush on her. Fallon was pretty sure that she just needed someone to constantly tell her what to do, and quite frankly she was perfectly happy to fill that role.

The skirt was a little short, though. Rather, Kirby’s legs might have just been a little long for it. Chances were the attention that she’d get from it wouldn’t be completely savoury, but that was her problem. Fallon wasn’t going to hold her hand forever.

* * *

“Drink this.”

Kirby eyed the champagne flute in Fallon’s hand, looking warily between her and Monica.

“Orange juice?”

Monica laughed instead of answering, and Fallon could practically see Kirby’s hair stand on end from her spot a few feet away from her. It was a new development - Kirby growing immediately nervous whenever anyone laughed near her - a new development but also a very useful tool. She was so easy to mold, like fresh play-doh, that Fallon almost _almost_ felt a little cruel for it. Still, that was her own damn fault for being such a sucker. **Those who were highly suggestable** needed to be responsible for paying attention to who they listened to.

“It’s a mimosa, obviously. What am I, eleven years old?” Kirby tensed at the mention of her own age, just like Fallon had known she would. “We’re going to be going to coed parties next year. It’s practice.”

“I’m not going to any coed parties,” Kirby pointed out.

“Unless your dad forces me to take you,” Fallon snapped back. “Drink it. It’s good. I made it for you.”

She barely finished her sentence before Kirby took the flute, taking a small, experimental sip, followed by another much more confident one.

“Oh,” her voice was quiet. “It is good.”

“I know,” Fallon moved closer to Monica, making room for Kirby beside them. The redhead almost fell over herself to join them - it wasn’t often that she and Fallon actually spent time together when Fallon’s other friends, her _real_ friends, were around.

It was a precarious balance, the push and pull of it all, but Kirby was wrapped around her finger - even when they fought, she usually apologized first, or exclusively, depending on Fallon’s mood. She wondered how long it would be before the wall of outside attention and affection was broken and Kirby found someone new to latch onto. It was a frightening thought, that she might find someone better.

* * *

“Eat this.”

Kirby looked up from her paperwork and groaned appreciatively at the sight of the fresh muffin that Fallon was holding out to her.

“Thank you,” she breathed, snatching it from her hand and taking a monstrous bite from it without hesitation.

“You look like shit,” Fallon hummed, settling in across from her at the table in the center of the _Femperial_ office space. “Late night?”

Kirby shrugged, taking another bite before answering.

“A bit.”

“With Culhane?”

Silence pushed in on the two of them from every direction, heavy and stifling, until Kirby spoke again.

“No.”

“So then who was it?”

Before Kirby had the chance to answer, Allison let herself in to the room with a sticky note of messages to pass along, ending the conversation before Kirby could protest.

“Thank you.” The redhead smiled brightly, as if the receptionist had just promised to house sit for her, or surprised her with a free car wash. Her bright friendliness, still shining even through a very obvious hangover and rocky sleep, was unrelentingly consistent.

“You’re really not going to tell me?” Fallon asked as Allison left.

“There’s nothing to -”

Kirby’s phone buzzed on the table between them, and she reached for it quickly but Fallon grabbed it before she could.

_“Hey babe, you left your phone charger plugged in here, do you want me to drop it off on my way to class?”_ Fallon read aloud, leaning back in her seat with the phone as Kirby leaned forward and tried to swipe it back. “Who is _Rhea-beer-emoji-tongue-emoji?”_

“Give that back,” Kirby hissed, swiping for the phone again before getting up out of her seat entirely. Fallon followed suit, hopping to her feet and moving to keep the table between them at all times, causing Kirby to switch from demanding to pleading. “Please?”

“No, tell me who this is! I really hope this tongue is in here because she’s a linguist.” 

“A cunning one, even.” Kirby faked left and then grabbed Fallon as she darted right into her trap around the right, wrapping both arms around her waist and grappling for the phone. Even hungover and exhausted, she was scrappy. Fallon chalked up the giddy burst of energy that she got from having Kirby wrapped around her to the familiarity of it. They’d play-fought as kids. Revisiting it as adults admittedly cutesy, and she’d kill Kirby if she ever breathed a word of it to anyone, but for the time being, when it was just them, she found herself getting into the spirit of things and trying to pull her elbows between herself and the other woman, retightening her grip on the phone.

Her laughter made her weak, though, and only seemed to inspire Kirby to wedge one hand up beneath her arm and wiggle her fingers, causing Fallon’s legs to immediately buckle under her.

Kirby caught herself and subsequently Fallon by grabbing the edge of the table with her free hand, stopping her tickling assault as quickly as she'd started it as Fallon snapped, calling for a truce as sternly as she could through the very embarrassing giggling being forced out of her.

“Enough, _stop!_ Seriously - _get off of me!_ ” Dropping the phone to the floor to prove her point, Fallon stumbled away as Kirby let her go and huffily straightened her shirt. 

“You didn’t _have_ to take my phone,” Kirby pointed out, retrieving it from the floor and sitting contently back in her seat.

“You could have just told me,” Fallon snapped back.

Kirby seemed to consider that for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay. I will. _Next time.”_

Before Fallon could ask how often she planned to have one night stands outside of her weird quasi-flirting relationship with Culhane, she had picked up her muffin, and the file she’d been looking over, and headed out the door.

* * *

“Maybe if you tried to understand why I’m here, instead of just insulting me, you would see that _you’re_ the con man.”

Upon arrival, Fallon had readied herself mentally for all sorts of reactions that Kirby might have. She was unhappy; she was suckered into some weird pseudo-religion; she was on drugs - 

whatever. Blake had sent her away and she’d decided to stay this time. Easy. 

She hadn’t been prepared to be blamed, though. **Those who blame others** often joined cults - it was affirming to know that nothing bad was ever your fault. The universe had worked against you for your whole life, but if you give us half a million dollars, you can live in a hut where nothing bad ever happens. It’s all part of some big plan, or whatever.

“You’re the most toxic Carrington of them all.”

_Her._ Not Blake, not Alexis, not even Adam. _Her._

It didn’t matter if it was objectively true or not. It was true to Kirby, and not only was her opinion the only one that mattered for the time being, but it explained a lot. Fallon didn’t get to explain anything, though. Not before they were thrown out.

The air outside the gates was the same as it was inside, but it still felt like a breath of fresh air to be out. A fog had started to settle in over Fallon’s mind while inside, and while she was perfectly focused on her rescue mission, it was clear that the cult compound was no joke. Even Adam seemed comfortable and happy while they were there, which was really no surprise, but outside, now, he was helpful. Kind, even.

Whether it was the general exhaustion or the weird pull that this new and improved Adam was exhibiting, Fallon found herself talking, and then almost babbling, the words fighting over each other to get out of her mouth first.

_“This is all my fault.”_

She’d have to go back in. She had to try again. The newfound clarity that it wasn’t just Blake’s fault that Kirby was gone made her want to double down on the mission. If Kirby really did run off to Sri Lanka with a Jared Leto knockoff because of Blake, then fine. Fallon could happily spend the rest of her life hating him for it. But if Kirby left on her own accord because of _her_ , she’d never stop thinking about it for the rest of her days. She at least needed to apologize.

She found her in the room that she _would_ have been forced to share with Adam - maybe being caught and kicked out before lights out had a silver lining - rearranging the bed for what Fallon had to assume was some kind of punishment for partially hiding fugitives.

“I already told you, I’m not leaving.”

She looked so much stronger than she had when Fallon had seen her only ten minutes earlier. Stronger, but much, _much_ more tired. 

Every part of her had hardened, like it was her usual softness that took the real effort. The upbeat positivity, the friendliness by default - she’d run away and joined a wellness cult. She had obviously been hurting for a lot longer than she’d let on. That had been replaced with anger. **Those who are angry** always managed to find the people who would justify it.

And Fallon had contributed to it. Every time.

Maybe it was true; maybe she really would have been happier with Joel and the rest of the synergists. 

“Though everyone else is right for wanting you to come back, it doesn’t mean you’re wrong for wanting to stay.”

She didn’t remember moving to grab her hands, but she felt like her eyes were going to well up as soon as she did. They were cold - they were _always_ cold - and she would have taken back every complaint about them or jab about her poor circulation and promise up and down to never make a snarky comment again if Kirby would just change her mind.

She just had to decide to give it up and give in to what Fallon was so clearly asking from her. Just like she always did.

Now.

… _Now._

“I want you to be able to make your own decisions.” _Right after this one. Please. Please make this decision for me, first._

She didn’t say anything, though. She let Fallon keep talking herself into a conclusion, inching closer and closer, word by word to what she was desperately hoping she wouldn’t need to say.

“I’m sorry, and… goodbye.”

She reached over to hug her, slipping her arms around her shoulders and tucking her chin against her neck. This was it. The last time she was going to feel her sinuses protest at the cloying smell of strawberry shampoo and coconut conditioner. She hated the smell but couldn’t stop herself from briefly dipping her nose into her hair, pulling back as quickly as she had grabbed ahold of her. The longer she stayed tucked into her, the harder it would be to leave with any composure, so she kept it brief and quickly turned on her heel, refusing to look back as she left the room, then the building, then the compound.

* * *

So they’d be walking. 

It was some kind of fucked-up karmic retribution that she would be forced to spend what would probably be a full day, if not longer, walking in the middle of nowhere, with her only two options for conversation being Adam or her own raging thoughts. 

“You guys sure do walk slow.”

Whirling around to the sight of Kirby approaching them, Fallon felt her heart slam against the inside of her ribcage and had to suppress the urge to leap into the other woman’s arms. Rooted to the spot in shock, she grinned widely - she felt almost hysterical; manic - and tried to find the words to express herself.

“Kirby, what’re you doing here?” _Once again, very smooth._

She didn’t need to try again, though, before the other woman explained that help was on the way. She was coming back. Fallon felt delirious.

As the three of them trekked back towards the main road, Fallon let herself fall ahead of the pack, trying to regain a sense of control. This had easily been the most stressful day that she’d had in a long time, and while the drama of it all had initially exhausted her beyond belief, the whiplash of relief that was now setting in was only adding to her sudden urgent tiredness.

* * *

Despite being desperate to change into something silk, not poly-blend, and climb into a cushiony bed to sleep for a week, the sight of Kirby in the foyer made her stop. Nothing was more important than that, not in that moment, and despite the knowing looks from Adam that she’d received after she and Kirby needed to be woken up in the back seat of Anders’ car where they’d fallen asleep on one another, Fallon felt at peace. Or, at least, as at peace as she normally did. 

Kirby needed to know she’d made the choice herself. Fallon hoped, at least, that she’d had at least something to do with her coming home, but didn’t push it. She’d just escaped being fully brainwashed by a cult. She could take credit for at least _one_ personal win that day.

Everything was perfect. Kirby was home, she was safe - hell, Fallon had even made incredible headway with Adam, in spite of everything - and having a little more clarity on everything happening with Blake made her feel a bit more in control, too.

Glancing around the foyer distractedly, though, she felt that same fogginess returning to her mind. Perhaps it was just the tiredness - she was half tempted to ask Kirby if she wanted to split a bottle of wine and pass out on the couch watching a scary movie like they did as kids - before ice-cold, horrifying realization hit her.

She’d felt that exact brand of fogginess only once before, that day, in fact. At the compound.

“Fallon, are you okay?”

Kirby’s words snapped her attention back to her, and she could hear the shake in her own voice as she replied.

“I… don’t think I’m going to stay here tonight.”

“Oh.” Kirby knitted her brows together in confusion, tilting her head to the side. “Where will you go?” 

“I… I don’t know. I’ll get an Airbnb.”

“Okay,” Kirby straightened up to her full height, her face still laced with concern.

“Come with me.”

Kirby watched her face for a moment, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully. Despite the outward appearance of the day’s events being about Kirby - saving Kirby, helping Kirby - there was now an unspoken understanding between the two of them that it had been equally, if not more, about Fallon. Now she just needed one last favour. 

“I’m just going to catch up with my dad, first. Is that okay?”

Her worried tone made Fallon feel simultaneously taken care of, and as if she were a ticking bomb. **Those who have low self-worth** were always the first to go, when it came to running off into forests to join communes and drink cyanide-flavoured kool-aid. But it wasn’t always a cluster of repurposed barns with a massive electronic gate fencing them in. Sometimes it was twenty bedrooms and several acres of hunting land surrounding your own personal body-dumping lake. 

The bright spots of clear thought in her life growing up had vanished when she was fourteen, and hadn’t returned until the previous year. Even through fights, and betrayal, and rage, everything with Kirby had been real. She never had to second guess her own thoughts or wonder if her mind was playing tricks on her when they were together, no matter the circumstances.

She only nodded in response, not trusting her voice not to crack if she opened her mouth. 

“Okay,” Kirby gave her a soft, reassuring smile. Everything would be fine. “I’ll come find you in a little bit.”

Reaching out, she rubbed one hand over Fallon’s arm, firm enough to be a reminder that she was _there_ and it was _real_ \- gentle like taking care of her was the only thing on the other woman’s mind despite the ordeal she had just been through.

“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?”

Looking right into her eyes, finally, Fallon could already feel the fogginess dissipating despite not having left yet.

“I will be. Thank you. For doing this with me. I know you just got home, and -”

Kirby cut her off.

“Home is relative. I think today proved that. You sure you don’t want to come talk to my dad, too, before we go? I’m sure he’d like to see you.”

“It’s fine,” Fallon promised. “I have to pack, anyway, and there’s one more thing I have to do.”

She pictured her letter in her mind as she took the stairs two at a time. She’d been zero for two with telling Kirby how she felt earlier, so she was hoping her luck would change as she let Blake know that she may not have known where she was headed, but she wasn’t coming back.

Escaping a cult in a Porsche was much more her style than walking down a dirt road in a burlap sack.


End file.
